15 August 2015

The California Genealogical Society and Jeffrey Vaillant will guide you on the trip of a lifetime at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne Indiana from October 4-11, 2015.

Magic can be
the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah AND magic can be the Allen
County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where wonderful discoveries can be
made.

Join Jeffrey
Vaillant, past President of the California Genealogical Society and current President of the Sonoma County Genealogical Society, in his biennial trip to
Allen County, Indiana. This year the dates are October 4-11 and includes seven nights at the Mariott Courtyard Fort Wayne, transportation to and from the airport, breakfast each morning, one group dinner, orientation and lectures, computer assistance, and two sessions with Harold Henderson, CG. For more details and to register for this amazing trip, please visit our Eventbrite page.

Four years
ago, during his 2011 trip, a simple walk down the library stacks resulted in
solving a 20 year-old mystery on the German village birth place of one of the participants.

The Allen
County Public Library’s Genealogical Center is a great place to do
research.What makes the trip there
special is it is done with likeminded folks who share a passion for
genealogy.The trip brings out the best
of collegial efforts.While the mornings
and afternoons are spent digging into information, the noon hour allows
everyone to enjoy a meal together (no host) and share their findings.

Thinking of
joining the group? Here are a few comments from previous attendees:

“Jeff, you are a GPS for finding your way in
the wilds of Ft. Wayne, your research on the restaurants was flawless and in
short, you are a terrific group leader. “

and..

“I actually broke through a brick wall while
there, even though I ran into another brick wall behind it.”

and better
yet…

“I will go again ….”

The film
readers are better than any others -- not entirely easy to figure out
unless shown, but with options beyond imagination. They have the standard
series of film: DAR Bible records, passenger lists and a number of NARA
military series, but they also hold some unusual rolls not seen in Salt
Lake: small town records from New York, and will-series
possibly purchased from the Ohio state library. The unusual films are not
always labeled in detail, just by county, so you have to look at them
to know what they contain. There are plenty of early San
Francisco books -- back in the shelves where you make certain your
feet are on the floor should anyone else want to access the next row over.

The trip
begins on Sunday night with Harold Henderson, CG, author of Finding Ancestors in Fort Wayne, THEguide to using the ACPL. He will get us started on the
best way to tackle the information available at the Library.Harold
will join us again a few days later to see how things are progressing.

Harold Henderson, CG

Midweek we
hope to have dinner with Curt B. Witcher, Genealogy Center Manager.On our last trip, he shared the insider look
at the Library, which included watching the actual digitization of their
newspaper collection.

Curt Witcher

If you are
worried about how much time you have to research, don’t! The hours are as
follows: